


All That Glitters Is Rainbows.

by Sphye



Category: Eldemore
Genre: A cautionary tale for a color-loving dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 13:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3694424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sphye/pseuds/Sphye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a little rune dragon with a knack for making trouble comes home covered in glitter(?), her bearer decides to share a story to hopefully curb her antics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Glitters Is Rainbows.

The noon sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating dust drifting lazily to nowhere in particular. The steady breathing of dozens of small drakes blended into a comforting sound, a sound of unusual calm. To have so many dragons merely resting calm might have been a small miracle. Even the jellyfish rune Daria slept soundly in the sink, her stings spread like a thin, patchy blanket.  
Mara sat on the wooden couch, rereading an old homesteading book for the hundredth time. The sound of the pages turning regularly blended into white noise along with the muted birdsong and sleeping drakes.

A knock on the wooden door disturbed the serene scene. Nubmee awoke, curiously bumbling towards the door to see the source of the noise.  
"I'm coming!" Mara shouted, placing the book spine-up on the seat beside her. The knocking sounded again, the four beats sounding like sleipnir hooves. _Or perhaps half a sleipnir_ , Mara mused as she peered through the peephole.

Edgar stood outside the door, his tan shirt covered in glittery splotches of pink, gold, and blue. Squirming in his arms was a vaguely rune-ish shape covered in these colours.  
"Edgar!" she greeted, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. "I-is that Canvas?" she asked, already knowing the answer.  
"I don't even know if this is paint or glitter," he said, making a valiant but futile attempt to keep hold of the messy dragon. Canvas leapt from his arms to Mara's face, leaving a puff of multi-coloured sparkles in her hair. Skittering out of reach of her bearer, she ran inside to hide from whatever wrath or bath may await.

"Ugh, thank you. I'm sorry about that." Mara muttered, trying to comb the bright dust from her hair with her fingers.  
"It's okay," Edgar responded, reaching out a hand to help wipe a large smudge of blue from beneath Mara's eye.  
They exchanged their goodbyes with a short hug, and Mara returned inside to assess Canvas's damage.

The fluffy dragon was found in the sink, apparently fighting Daria for rights to the water. Swiftly and without hesitation, Mara reached out and grabbed the troublemaking dragon.  
"Canvas, you can't do that," the bearer said, while the silver-eyed dragon seemed to resign herself to the fact that she was about to enter Lecture Land. "I don't even know where you found all of this glitter, but you made a huge mess and caused a lot of trouble. You can't just steal colours."  
Suddenly Mara was struck with an idea. "I have a story for you," she grinned. "It's about what happens when you try to chase after things that aren't yours."  
Mara carried the cat-sized dragon to the couch where she had previously been reading, cradling Canvas's wings close to her body so that she couldn't fly away.

"This is the story of the Great Rainbow Elkrin, and the rune dragon who tried to steal her rainbows.

Once upon a time there was a rune dragon. This dragon loved color. She loved it so much that she would try to keep it and make it hers. She loved to paint, and to sing loudly and poorly. Her name was Canvas."  
Canvas cocked her head questioningly.  
"Yes, this Canvas is you. Anyway, one day she escaped from her house without her bearer, and she saw something. It was the brightest shade of purple that she had ever seen. Then she saw another colour, a blue that chased away the purple. The colours shifted and changed, but then they started moving. Canvas chased them excitedly, stalking like an oblivious kitten. Just as she was about to leap right into them, she saw where the colours were coming from:  
There was a great pink Elkrin, a great pink Elkrin with great pink wings and a long, pink horn. It smiled blissfully, but its smile wasn't what Canvas noticed. Canvas noticed the colours that came from its rear, gaseous colours of green and orange and violet and blue, and an entire rainbow more.

"Great Elkrin," asked Canvas," Mara said, using a nasally and childish voice to represent Canvas, ""Great Elkrin, how do you make those colours?"

The elkrin continued to grin dopily. "These colours are how I share happiness with the land! I am in charge of the rainbows, like the ones on the floor in the kitchen. Those rainbows are a sign that I have visited you and taken some of your food. I also make the rainbows across the sky, and near waterfalls."

Canvas ignored the fact that her question of "how" wasn't really answered. "Will you share some of your colours with me?" she asked with excitement.

"But I am! You are admiring them now. This is how I share!"

"But I want to have bright, pretty colours like those!" she exclaimed. Her wings were nearly as bright as the colours the elkrin made with their bottom, but not quite as bright. She wanted _those_ colours.

"I'm afraid I cannot give them to you, dear," the Great Elkrin replied. "If I gave my colours away I couldn't share them with all of Elde anymore!"

Canvas put on a pouty face, but it made no difference. The elkrin began to stride away, but Canvas just couldn't let that be.

"I want those colours!" she screeched, leaping right into them. They covered not only her bright wings, but her fluffy grey fur, too. Her entire body glowed bright and bold colours, shifting and changing. She had succeeded.

She had succeeded, and she smelled terrible.

 

Though the elkrin's colours were beautiful, they came from their farts, and fart-colours, no matter how pretty, are not to be trusted. Canvas had been told this before by her smart and strangely foresightful bearer, but she hadn't listened."

Real Canvas squawked indignantly, protesting both Mara's embellished description of herself and story-Canvas's smell.

"Hush, I'm still talking," Mara continued.

"The Great Elkrin giggled and ran off into the sky, leaving a huge rainbow behind them. Canvas was left alone, beautiful but stinky.

"What do I do now?" she thought. She couldn't go back home smelling like a sparkle fart, but she couldn't hide here, either! Prong Foxes might not be detered by fart-smells, and her brighter colours wouldn't let her blend at all.

Canvas made a decision.  
"I just need to find some water and wash off these colours! If the colour goes away, the smell should, too! Nobody will ever know the better."

Of course, Canvas forgot about one important thing: The water was filled with jellyfish runes. They would all see her if she tried to bathe there! Her options grew slimmer.

"What do I do?" she cried out. She could either face up to the other runes, or she could go home to her bearer smelling like a fart. There was no way to win.

In the end Canvas trudged home, not even flying for risk of being seen by more people than she had to be seen by. Her bearer opened the door, scooped her up, and promptly made a face because of how the little rune smelled. She got a bath and never chased a rainbow again. The end."

Mara smiled, her cautionary tale wrapped up.

"Now, how about we start on your real bath? You're getting glitter all over the place."  
Canvas shrieked, flapping her wings and hoping to find someplace in which no bath could reach her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was just a goofy little thing that popped into my head, which //someone// convinced me to post.  
> If you have any helpful critique, I'd love to hear it!


End file.
